Helix Native sound quality problems, for someone with no recording background

[LibbieRohan]

Hi! First I think it's good to state that I am by far a beginner in guitar plugins and vsts. I used to play a long time ago (15-20 years ago )and decided to come back trying Helix Native

 

I'm using Helix Native on a windows pc in reaper, through a Motu M4, I have the same guitar I had years ago, it's a cheap guitar but it has Seymour Duncan JB and 59 pickups, it's not a great guitar but it's properly set up, I mean, electronics, pickup height, octaves, etc.

I can't make a good sound in Helix Native, I have the proper levels on the input, set up by my interface gain knob (right in the middle of the bars right next to input meter, most loud thing I can play doesn't go above -12db) it just sounds thin, no matter how hard I turn the knobs on the amp, drives and eq.

 

The only thing I could do that improved the sound was to use another instance of Helix, using the "DI" factory preset before the Helix with the preset that I was trying. Which applies some things but the main effect being the studio tube pre from the preamp>mic section.

When I do that I get some of the chunk back from the tone that I'm used to have when I play this guitar through a normal amp.

 

Am I missing something here? What should we do to get a real decent tone? When I saw some videos comparing a hardware Helix to Helix Native it was this huge brutal difference, the software version just sounds thin. I'm quite sure it is something related to recording technique because on paper software is the same and my interface is probably decent enough. Any ideas?
 

[datacommando]

On 9/19/2025 at 4:31 AM, LibbieRohan said:

Any ideas?

Yup - I get the idea that you are having a laugh - just copy and paste someone else’s question!

 

Well, here ya go - a copy and paste reply!

 

Hope this helps/makes sense.

[rd2rk]

I thought that looked familiar.

[silverhead]

This looks like an example of a recent trend I'm seeing to get past the spam nanny here - namely the requirement for new users to have their first post approved. A sophisticated approach for a new spammer is to copy an already approved post by someone else so it will also be approved as their first post, then begin spamming under an approved userid.

 

I am following this user.